Hollywood star Jenifer Lewis reveals near-death experience in Tanzania

Lewis recalled, in a preview of a sit-down interview with news anchor Robin Roberts that aired on Good Morning America, that in 2022, she planned to retire and travel, after 'Black-ish' wrapped and she released a book.

But in November of that same year, an adventurous vacation went awry when she fell off of her hotel balcony while on vacation in Tanzania.

Speaking for the first time about the incident, the 67-year-old Black-ish star said the past year has been "the hardest" as she recovered from the fall.

"Did you think you were going to die?" Roberts, 63, asked Lewis, to which she responded, "I did."

"I didn't know you could be in that much pain and be alive," she added. "I went from that high kick standing on my star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, five months later, I was on the ground of the Serengeti and that same leg couldn’t move."

The accident happened in November 2022, three months after the publication of her memoir, Walking in My Joy: In These Streets. Black-ish had wrapped that April after eight seasons, and Lewis was feeling on top of the world.

"I was going to retire, move back home," she said. "I had travelled around the world and life was wonderful."

She and her friends had travelled from Cape Town to Rwanda, where she went up in the mountains with the gorillas. "It was scary but it does give you a sense of fearlessness and courage," she said. "We're having a good time, we're feeling a lot. We're going where the real people are."

From there, the group went to the Serengeti and checked into a hotel. It was at the end of her first day there that Lewis fell. "When the sun sets in the Serengeti, there are no street lights. It's pitch black," she recalled. "I was escorted to the lodge, my room, but I wasn't given a tour. I should have been given a tour."

Describing her pain as "pure shock", Lewis continued to narrate the frightening experience soon after.

"My right hip took the impact. My shoulder went up against the stone," she said. "A lightning bolt went through my mind's eye. In pitch black, I didn't know I was falling. nothing would move. So I laid there and said, 'Move your body, baby. Come on Jenny, move your body.' "

At that point, Lewis then called for her friend Laurie. "It was hard even to take a big breath to scream," she said.

And scream Lewis wanted to, especially when Laurie shined a flashlight down at her and spotted a buffalo just 10-foot. away — one of many animals in the area.

"When Laurie ran to get help, I heard a lion roar," she recalled. "My last thought, because I'm Jenifer Lewis, was 'What a headline! The King Ate the Queen: Pieces of Jenifer Lewis' Body Is Being Flown Back to the States.'"

Lewis said she was rescued by Maasai warriors who fiercely protect local wildlife and airlifted to Nairobi.

"I fell in Tanzania and was airlifted to Kenya. The 9-hour surgery took place in Nairobi," the Black-ish actress clarified on X.

The remote location of her trip complicated her rescue, and Lewis said Doctors Without Borders staff eventually airlifted her to Nairobi, Kenya, where she underwent surgery for a fractured acetabulum, the socket that holds the femur in place.

Her harrowing experience included 10 hours of surgery, three blood transfusions and six days in an intensive care unit.

"The Nairobians were a beautiful, sweet people. They took such good care of me," Lewis recalled.

As for why Lewis didn’t open up about this before, Roberts shared that Lewis had said she hadn’t wanted people to know about the fall “until I could show you all that I got back up.”

After recovering from the accident, Lewis was able to appear in NBC’s Night Court revival and Jennifer Lopez’s musical movie, This is Me…Now: A Love Story.